


Where We Began

by ObscureReference



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Near Death Experiences, nothing graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 10:43:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11827074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObscureReference/pseuds/ObscureReference
Summary: “I don’t know you,” Odin said. A significantly younger Odin than had been standing in front of Niles a moment ago.





	Where We Began

**Author's Note:**

> I love the time travel trio.
> 
> Also I think about the Fates crew (specifically the Nohrian royals) finding out about their retainer's pasts a lot, but I never really ever do anything about it, nor do I ever complete anything, so here's something that semi-starts to get there since I knew I'd never finish anything bigger. 
> 
> I wrote this like a month ago and let it sit until now, but even so, I should be writing FFXV instead. I'm caught between imagining FE14 stuff almost constantly and then knowing I should write more FFXV and in the end writing nothing from lack of commitment/motivation. (I keep wanting to write short magical realism fics, but even then I just can't be motivated to do so. :p) So hopefully editing this gets me there, at the very least. (Most of the FE13 personalities are written from pure memory, btw, since this is mostly self-indulgent.)

“I don’t know you,” Odin said. A significantly younger Odin than had been standing in front of Niles a moment ago.

His hair was different. Lighter. Nearly the shade of Niles’ own, though perhaps even brighter than that. His eyes had become lighter as well, the brown fading into a swirl of blue. He had shrunk over half a foot, and somehow his clothes had changed with him. His normal gaudy outfit had been swapped for long sleeves trimmed with some kind of fur and thicker boots that would have been better suited for colder climates—information that Niles filed away for later.

These were all observations Niles made in the split-second it took for him and the suddenly younger Odin size each other up. Niles wondered what Odin saw in him. For how much he blabbered in daily life, Odin could be very quick witted when he wanted to be.

“I don’t know you,” Odin said again. He didn’t take a step back when faced with an older, stronger, better armed opponent as many would have, which Niles silently admired. Then again, Odin’s voice reminded Niles of the way his younger self might have sounded when backed into a corner. It was not a good thing.

Odin narrowed his eyes. His face was a little more gaunt than Niles thought it should have been for a—how old was he? Fourteen?

“Am I in Plegia?” Odin asked.

The last thing Niles wanted to do was startle him. He needed to get Lord Leo and inquire as to what in the seven hells that ripple that had shaken the castle’s foundations had been. Whatever it was, it had caused Niles to stumble and Odin to choke mid-laugh. When Niles had gathered himself again, Odin had changed. Obviously.

And Niles was willing to bet Odin hadn’t been the only one adversely affected.

He had always known Odin and those other two must have come from a very odd, secret place indeed if Niles had been unable to find any trace of their past within Nohr, Hoshido, or any of the other tiny neighboring stretches of land between. He just wasn’t sure how that information—that absence of information, really—helped him here.

“I’ve never heard of Plegia,” Niles said carefully. He kept his eye on Odin, watching for a reaction.

Odin frowned. “That’s not possible.”

It was odd to see him so young. Even more oddly, he somehow looked more stressed as a child than he ever had as an adult in the middle of a war. There was a faded scar on his cheek Niles had never noticed on the adult Odin. Odin flexed his fingers, but there was nothing in reach that could serve as a weapon. Some of the callouses on his hands looked new.

He saw Odin’s eyes flicker around the room, taking stock of the training dummies in the corner and cloth matts on the floor, always keeping Niles in his line of sight. Thinking quickly, wanting to keep him engaged, Niles offered, “You’re in Nohr.”

Odin’s frown deepened. “I’ve never heard of Nohr,” he mimicked.

Interesting.

Lord Leo should really see this, Niles thought.

“Listen, Odin—”

“That’s not my name.”

Niles bit the inside of his cheek. An amateur slip-up. Of course that wasn’t his name. Niles had long ago realized that “Odin” was merely a pseudonym, but he had no idea what this child’s real name would be. Opposite as they were, Niles and Odin had eventually become friends, but Odin had stayed secretive about even that.

“Slip of the tongue,” Niles said, though he doubted Odin believed him. His younger self wouldn’t have believed a stranger either. “I know you have no reason to trust me, but stay here for a moment, would you? I promise I mean you no harm.”

Odin didn’t look like he wanted to agree, but he nodded stiffly. They held no trust in one another, but even with his back turned, Niles was sure he had more than enough fighting experience to keep a preteen in line. Besides, there was only one real exit.

He ducked into the hallway and saw a young maid fretting over some spilled linens.

“Fetch Lord Leo here immediately,” he told her. “Tell him it’s urgent.”

She nodded and snatched the last of the cloth off the floor before taking off. If there was one good thing about Nohrian attendants, it was their efficiency.

Well, that had been easy enough. He had expected that errand to take much longer.

When Niles stepped back into the room approximately thirty seconds after having stepped out, he saw Odin climbing out the window—out the window Niles had previously deemed a non-exit. They were several hundred feet above the ground in one of the south towers with nothing but open air below them. An unluckly slip could easily lead to a few very short second of freefall before a hopefully instant death.

The sight of Odin—reckless, both legs dangling out the window and supported only by measly upper body strength alone—nearly gave Niles a heart attack.

As an adult, Odin had pulled more than enough foolish stunts to last a lifetime. But _children_. Children were stupid, foolhardy, _and_ they believed they could live through anything. Niles had been one long enough to know.

Perhaps an adult Odin was reliable enough, but Niles had next to no faith in the logical reasoning of a child who would one day grow into an adult who _still_ narrated his daily routine as though they were part of a storybook.

He wasted no time barking orders, instead lunging across the room to grab Odin and pull him back to safety. Odin clearly had expected Niles to be gone longer, or else hadn’t seen him coming, because he yelped in surprise as Niles drew near and actually _slipped_ for one heart-wrenching moment until he caught himself again.

Niles managed to grab Odin’s bony wrist before the boy successfully fell to his death. Odin pulled away from his grip, but he seemed to realize he could not pull too hard without causing himself to fall. It was impossible for Niles to pull him back inside with the way he was wiggling, however. Odin’s skin felt hot under Nile’s fingers.

“Do you want to _die_?” Niles hissed, angry at both Odin for being so careless and himself for being foolish enough to turn his back.

“Let go of me, you fiend!” The insult was by far too uncreative for Odin’s typical tastes.

“Sure, I’ll do just that,” Niles said. He had once teasingly sworn Odin’s eccentrics would be the death of Lord Leo, but it appeared he would be the death of Niles too. “I’ll just let you hit the ground like the yolk spilling from an egg. How does that sound?”

Odin paled. He stilled long enough for Niles to remove the hand he was using to brace himself on the windowsill and attempt to grab Odin’s other arm. He miscalculated, and Odin batted him away again. Niles braced himself with one arm once more.

He scowled. He wasn’t sure how long they could hang here like this. He would have been surprised if Odin had the strength for much longer; children didn’t have the stamina that came with age.

“Come _here_ ,” Niles said. His grip around Odin’s wrist was so tight he knew there would be bruises, and yet he could not force himself to relax before the danger was passed.

Lips pressed tightly together, Odin looked up at him as though Niles were a stranger to distrust, and while it was not anywhere close to the first time someone had looked at him like that, the knowledge that it was _Odin_ who looked at him so coldly bristled something under Niles’ skin.

Odin’s gaze flickered down, then back to Niles’ face, then down again as though judging the distance to the ground. It was unquestionably a _you will certainly die_ distance. Even a child could see that.

Once, Niles had overheard Aqua say that Odin had a fear of heights. Such a fear had always struck him as strangely mundane for someone normally so eccentric. Niles had never witnessed the fear himself, if it were true.

Whatever had caused Odin to develop such a fear as an adult clearly had not happened to his younger self yet, because after half a second of thought, Odin steeled his jaw, said, “Tell your master we shall best him yet,” and then _bit Niles’ fingers_.

Niles hadn’t meant to let go. Days later, in the spare moments of silence he found for himself, his mind would jump back to _this_ moment. How Odin’s teeth had sunk into this skin, how the underhanded maneuver—not the pain—had startled him enough that his grip weakened, slack with surprise. How Odin’s arm slipped from under Niles’ grasp, and the empty air between his fingers had been the worst horror Niles had felt in a while.

Odin dropped like a boulder, looking startled and ignorant of the blood in the corner of his mouth. His foot was braced against the stone, and there was an awful scraping noise when his boot slid away from the wall as gravity took hold. In that split second between action and inaction, he looked less like Odin and more like any random child moments before something awful hit them.

Niles lunged, stomach jolting against the bottom of the windowsill.

He missed.

Odin fell approximately ten feet before he caught himself on another window, the breath audibly leaving his lungs in a _woosh_. The slap of skin hitting stone was so loud Niles registered how likely it was that Odin had cracked a rib before he registered the significance of what that meant. He had probably bruised his ribcage from the impact, if nothing else.

Niles watched as another pair of pale hands reached through the window and helped Odin scrambled inside. Odin let them. He disappeared, leaving Niles staring dumbly out the window a floor above. It took longer than he would admit for what he saw to sink it.

Odin was alive. He was in the castle. His tiny child body was not splatted against the dirt and grass below.

The buzzing in Niles’ ears began to fade. He became aware of something other than his own pounding heartbeat.

Niles was going to kill him.

 

 

 

“Where are we?” Owain panted, following Inigo and the endless twists and turns laid out before him. He hoped Inigo knew where they were going, because he sure didn’t. “What’s going on?”

Inigo shook his head and spat some of his hair out of his mouth. “I don’t know!”

Owain looked at him. That was his _I’m barely holding it together_ voice. Inigo had a lot of voices, but Owain heard that one a lot more often recently.

They turned another corner and startled a woman with pink hair wearing a maid uniform. It was possible she was just a maid, but if this was a trick Grima or one of his servants was pulling on them, then she could have been anything ranging from an assassin to some new form of monster brought up from the earth. Looks could be deceiving.

Still, it was a little hard not to feel bad when the woman, upon spotting two young teens sprinting at her full force, squeaked and tripped, spilling the tea she was carrying and sending the metal tray clattering to the floor.

It was a miracle among miracles that Odin had looked out that window to see Inigo looking up from the floor below. He hadn’t even been sure Inigo could catch him, only sure that he had to get away from the would-be assassin before he became the next victim in path of Grima’s servants.

He hadn’t meant to jump like that—he had wanted to climb down before he realized the stone was too smooth—but it had worked out in the end, even if Owain’s heart was still beating a million miles a minute from that stunt and his chested ached something awful from where he’d caught himself on the ledge. Running through the halls didn’t help.

Still, they couldn’t slow. Not until they were somewhere safe.

“Have you seen anyone else?” Inigo asked as they finally found a staircase. It was narrow and spiral, which made Owain worry about meeting anyone coming up the stairs while they were running down, but it was their only choice.

Owain followed on Inigo’s heels as they descended. “Nay. My eyes have only laid upon your familiar visage.” The stairs seemed to stretch on forever. “You?”

Inigo shook his head without looking back. Owain pressed his lips together and ran.

It felt like full minutes passed before they found an exist and burst out into what appeared to be the ground floor. The stairs had been empty, but they passed more people as they darted through the halls, searching for a way out. They were strange, unfamiliar faces. Owain could barely register their appearance as they passed; there was a man in blue, a woman in a clanking suit of armor, another woman with hair like a flowing river, a butler carrying another tray of fine china, and more.

None of them made a move toward the boys, though more than a few looked surprised or confused to see them.

“Inigo,” Owain gasped. “Inigo, wait.”

Inigo was moving too fast for Owain to grab his shirtsleeve, but he thankfully slowed at the sound of Owain’s voice.

“What? Are you hurt?” Inigo looked at him.

“No,” Owain said. They weren’t out yet, but the halls were widening, the corridors more open, and the empty space made Owain even more anxious of being caught. “But these people—if they’re really allies of Grima, why have they not attacked us?”

Inigo looked at him like he was crazy. “We’ve awoken in a strange castle filled with stranger people with no memory of how we got here, and you believe them to be _friends_? Did one not try to take you away already?”

Owain rolled his sore wrist and winced. The more he thought about it, the more unsure Odin felt that the man had truly intended to hurt him. He had looked less than kind, but…

“Perhaps there has been some kind of misunderstanding,” he said, but even he was unsure of that.

Inigo rolled his eyes and followed the corridor. They both paused as they saw the large door that sat before them. With the view from the windows, there was no doubt it would lead outside.

“Let’s just get somewhere safe first, yeah?” Inigo said. “We can figure out what to do afterwards.”

Owain nodded. It was good enough for him.

Again, nobody stopped them from going up to the door and pushing it open. It was a large door, and it took all of their strength combine to manage it, but they managed to create a gap just wide enough to slip out of. Inigo looked at Owain and grinned.

Inigo placed one foot beyond the threshold, and that was when they heard the screaming.

 

 

 

“Get away!” Severa screeched shrilly. “Get away, get away, get away! I don’t know you!”

The violet haired woman who had backed away when Severa first started screaming looked almost hurt. She pouted, lips full and eyes wet, but Severa wasn’t stupid enough to fall for a move like _that_.

“But you _do_ know me, darling,” she said, despite the fact Severa clearly didn’t. “There is clearly some magic at work here, but if you just come here—” to the woman’s open arms, masquerading as a welcoming hug when she was clearly waiting to strangle Severa. “—we’ll figure it out together.”

Gods, what did this woman take her for? A toddler?

“Get away from me!” she shouted again. If she screamed enough, perhaps help would come. Or she could stall long enough to figure a way out of this stable. The woman was standing between Severa and the exit. Stalls upon stalls of wyvern and peguses lined the walls.

Severa didn’t have her sword; she didn’t have any weapons at all, and she was pretty sure the pegasus in the stable behind her was going to panic if she continued screaming like she was. If she was lucky, it might break out of the stall.

So she kept screaming.

There were no words this time. Just piercing shrieks and all the feelings Severa had kept bottled up for the past year. It was an honest to goodness _screech_ to even Severa’s own ears, and the suspicious woman winced. Her pout dropped into something a little harder.

“Selena—” That wasn’t Severa’s name. “I’m trying to help you here, but you’re making it very difficult for me. Would you _please_ stop screaming for a moment? I won’t even try to hug you again.”

The offer was good enough that Severa paused, considering. Maybe she could negotiate herself out of this one after all. Or at least get some answers before she made a run for it.

The woman—beautiful and intimidating in a way Severa would admire when there was a bit more distance between them—looked pleased.

That was the same moment Inigo and Owain came bursting in through the stall doors. Inigo was holding a gardening trowel like a weapon. Owain held up his fists as though he wasn’t the shortest of all three of them. They would have had to stand on each other’s shoulders to look even remotely intimidating. But they were a distraction.

“Oh my,” the violet woman said, studying them all with a calculating gaze Severa didn’t like. “It looks somebody is going to be in deep trouble for meddling with our retainers.”

Severa didn’t know what that meant, and she didn’t care. She ducked past the woman and made a dive for the door.

She didn’t get very far. Owain and Inigo both shouted as the woman caught Severa by the hair, and Severa swallowed a hiss of pain. Stupid hair. Maybe Laurent was right and it really was a liability now. She’d have to cut it as soon as she was out of here, even if her heart ached at the thought of chopping off so much of what her mother had given her. But that was a road she didn’t want to go down, so she ignored it.

“I’m so sorry,” the woman said, and it almost sounded like she meant it. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Selena. I just need you to stay put.”

She had wrapped her arms around Severa’s torso, releasing her grip on Severa’s scalp while also trapping her pretty effectively. It wasn’t exactly uncomfortable—the woman’s generous chest made a comfortable pillow against the back of her head, though that thought made Severa’s face go red with embarrassment and envy. Severa squirmed, but there was nowhere to go.

She eventually gave up and shot Owain and Inigo significant looks. They looked just as unsure as she felt.

“I promise I’m not going to harm any of you,” the woman said. Addressing the boys, she added, “You two are still dear to my brothers, even if you are not quite as cute as my darling Selena.”

Severa resisted the urge to bite the woman’s arms off. All that fake sappy stuff made her want to puke.

“That’s not my name,” she grumbled instead.

“Oh? And what is your real name?”

Severa bit her tongue. The woman hummed. Severa could feel the rumble of her voice against her back.

“I thought you might say that,” the woman said. “You clearly don’t remember me, so I didn’t think you’d trust me with that information yet either. I’m Camilla, by the way, if you forgot that too.”

Camilla had arms of steel, and she pressed her cheek against the top of Severa’s head like she thought she was Severa’s mother or something. Which she wasn’t. Severa scowled.

Camilla said, “Nobody here is going to hurt anybody else unless one of you decides to play misguided hero.”

She sounded like she meant it.

“And if we’re all done playing soldiers versus dragons, I think there is a lot of explaining to be done.”

**Author's Note:**

> It's been so long since FE13 and I can only guess at how 13/14 year old Severa's personality would differ from 16/17 Severa (where I place her around the FE13 timeline when she's first found by Chrom) but?? I love her??
> 
> Feel free to leave a comment below or hmu at my [tumblr!](http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/)


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